Wednesday 25 July 2012 22.59 EDT
First published on Wednesday 25 July 2012 22.59 EDT

Barack Obama has broken the silence he has maintained on gun control since the Colorado shootings, making a plea for Democrats, Republicans and community leaders to "arrive at a consensus" on how to reduce gun violence across the United States.

At the end of a trip lasting several days that began in Aurora, Colorado, where he met with families and victims of the massacre in a cinema, the US president told an audience that such tragedies were replayed on a smaller scale in cities throughout the country on a daily basis.

"Every day and a half the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater," Obama said in remarks at the National Urban League Conference in New Orleans.

"I'm going to continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organisations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."

Discussing or even touching on the issue of gun control in the US during an election year is risky, and Obama has been careful to avoid making sweeping proposals that could offend gun owners and rally his Republican opponents.

The president made a point of emphasising his support for the US constitution's second amendment, which outlines the right to bear arms.

"We recognise the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage," Obama said.

"But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."

Obama did not make any new proposals on gun control in his remarks, though he said background checks for people seeking to buy firearms were more thorough since he took office.

Mitt Romney, Obama's Republican opponent in the 6 November election, has said additional laws would not have stopped the massacre in Colorado. The former governor of Massachusetts has backed gun control measures in the past.

Obama noted that the political appetite to tackle the issue was low. "Too often those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere," he said.

"Other steps to reduce violence have been met with opposition in Congress. This has been true for some time, particularly when it touches on the issue of guns."

Twelve people were killed and 58 wounded when a gunman opened fire at a screening of the latest Batman movie in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

The assassination attempt on then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011, in which six people were killed and 14 wounded, also sparked a debate over how to reduce violence.

Obama has little political incentive to take on the issue of guns more directly. He is trying to shore up support among white working-class men in political battleground states such as Virginia, where a robust message on gun control would not be likely to help him politically.

His message was well received by the mostly black audience in New Orleans, however, and Obama's visit was meant to court that group ahead of the election.

The National Urban League released a report recently that said although black people voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, if that vote dropped even five percentage points this year it could tip the outcome in some vital states.